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414 South Las Palmas Avenue




  • Built in 1925 on Lot 116 in Tract 6388
  • Original commissioner: Dr. Harry Emanuel Bryant, who acted as his own contractor
  • Architect: Harry M. Lewis
  • On May 27, 1925, the Department of Building and Safety issued Dr. H. E. Bryant permits for a two-story, 10-room residence and a one-story, 18-by-18-foot garage at 414 South Las Palmas
  • Curiously, 414 South Las Palmas Avenue was listed for sale in a classified ad that ran in the Times on October 17, 1926. It may be that Dr. Bryant originally intended the house as a speculative project; he had, however, moved into the house himself with his family and would remain until 1954
  • Born in Salem, Indiana, on July 13, 1884, Harry Bryant married fellow Indianan Lucille Cropper in her native city of Muncie in October 1918. The Bryants lived in Chicago, where their son Harry Edwin Bryant, called "Ned," was born in January 1924. The family moved to Los Angeles not long after. After living quietly at 414 South Las Palmas Avenue for nearly 30 years, with Ned having married in June 1950 and moved out, the Bryants had the property on the market by December 1953. They would be moving to Beverly Hills
  • Attorney Leonard Saxton Lyon Jr. was the next owner of 414 South Las Palmas Avenue. Lyon was in a law partnership with his father and other family members specializing in patent, trademark, and copyright law; the original iteration of Lyon & Lyon had been founded in 1921. Born in Los Angeles on October 23, 1918, Leonard Jr. had grown up in West Adams and at 131 Fremont Place. He married again after a brief wartime marriage and had two sons; by 1950, he and his sons were living at 427 South Lucerne Boulevard in Windsor Square, from which he moved to 414 South Las Palmas
  • On May 18, 1954, the Department of Building and Safety issued Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Lyon—it is unclear as to whether this is the second or third Mrs. Lyon—a permit for a 20-by-40-foot swimming pool at 414 South Las Palmas Avenue
  • 414 South Las Palmas Avenue appeared on the market in the summer of 1962
  • George C. Woodward, the Los Angeles–born cofounder of a chain of western grocery stores known as The Food King, would own 414 South Las Palmas Avenue during the 1960s
  • Antonio Lombardo, who appears to be Antonio Díaz Lombardo, the Mexican banker and entrepreneur who in 1934 founded the airline that is today Aeroméxico, was the next owner of 414 South Las Palmas Avenue
  • In the fall of 1970, the Department of Building and Safety issued Antonio Lombardo permits for a carport and a two-story, nine-by-six-foot addition to the rear of the house
  • Dr. Moses Belgrade, a dentist, occupied 414 South Las Palmas Avenue during the 1990s. He and subsequent owners appear to have made only minor changes to the property 


Illustration: Private Collection